


Good Bones

by novelDaydreamer



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: (as backstory), Alternate Universe - Baby Blasters (Undertale), Child Abuse, Child Experimentation, Gen, POV Multiple, Slow Updates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2020-02-27 09:18:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18736141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novelDaydreamer/pseuds/novelDaydreamer
Summary: Fifty miles from the base of Mount Ebott, a hidden lab was established to study the anomalies surrounding the mountain and the strange, incredible energy field that local lore called “The Barrier.” Nine years ago, the first of their prized “Magic Infusion - Series 6” subjects was born.Five years ago, the barrier fell and changed everyone’s priorities.Three days ago, the monsters found out.





	1. Afa

“There,” Doctor Harris says. He waves a hand towards the examination chair without looking.

He’s standing between Afa and the step-bar into the chair, still talking to Doctor Mallory. Afa ducks around behind him and clambers up over the metal arm. It takes a few seconds, but she’s in the chair and lying back by the time Doctor Harris turns around.

Afa freezes still as Doctor Harris reaches for the bandages around her left eye. They must have decided that it was ready to test; it stopped itching two days ago. She counts breaths as Doctor Harris unwraps the bandage and peels the tape off. Afa’s good at being still - Doctor Harris doesn’t even have to say anything, and he always notices when she twitches.

The pad comes off of her eye and she closes it even though she tries not to. The light makes her eye sting, and Afa can feel tears sticking her lashes together.

“Open your eyes,” Doctor Harris says, tilting her head up with one hand. She _tries_. But he’s pointing her face right towards the big light above the chair and her left eye keeps closing again when she opens it a little bit.

“MIs6-Alpha, cooperate.”

Afa forces her eye open. It still twitches and feels full of tears, but Doctor Harris just uses his gloved thumb to hold the lid up. Doctor Mallory doesn’t say anything else.

“...stained the iris,” Doctor Harris is saying. “Look up… and down.”

She obeys. The eye stings, but it’s getting easier to keep it open. Afa still can’t see anything except the light overhead.

Finally, Doctor Harris steps back and the light switches off. She sits up and blinks a few times, looking around the examination room. Her left and right eye don’t match - it’s not double vision, but the colours are off and everything is still too bright - but she can definitely still see through both of them, which makes the little tight bundle in her stomach let go a bit.

The lab technician makes a noise, and when Afa looks at him he’s staring at her face with his own eyes wide. She looks away.

“Cover your right eye with your hand and describe what you see.”

The second her hand touches her eye, Afa’s breath hitches. The colours aren’t just different in her left eye - they’re gone.

The Doctors aren’t happy with her loss of colour vision. It’s even worse when her reading the eye chart is exactly the same between her treated and untreated eye. They didn’t tell Afa what they were doing, but she knows the treatment was supposed to make her able to read the tiny letters on the bottom of the chart instead of failing at the fifth line.

Afa sits on the examination chair and tries to be as still as possible, to be quiet like Bree can be so that they can’t even see her. It doesn’t work. The Doctors are busy talking to each other, but the lab technician keeps looking at her face.

She starts counting breaths again so she doesn’t twitch when the Doctors get louder.

Focused on staying still, she doesn’t look up when the door bangs open behind her. She doesn’t look up until Doctor Harris starts to scream.

There’s a - something in the door. Two somethings. The one in front is blue and red, wearing shiny metal plates and a piece of black material over its eye; she can barely see the one in the back except for a hand and arm that look like they’re made of dull white table legs.

The blue one is holding something - a pole with an arrow on the tip? But it’s glowing blue in both her eyes, not just the normal one - and when it takes a step forward the lab technician shrieks and stumbles backwards. He crashes into her and Afa is knocked sideways before she can brace herself, hitting her hip against the arm of the chair.

Between the yelling and the impact, she’s stunned for a moment. Then a hand grabs her shoulder - it’s Doctor Mallory, Afa realizes, and he pushes her forward without giving her a chance to steady herself. She stumbles and nearly falls. She’s between the Doctors and the somethings in the doorway, both of which are inside the room now, why-

“Stop them!” Doctor Mallory shouts. “MIs6-Alpha, attack them! Now!”

Oh.

That’s - she knows what that means. Afa reaches _in_ and then _out_ , drawing the purple lines of her manifestation across the room to catch the somethings.

The blue one shouts. Metal shoes bang on the ground as it roars towards her.

Afa flinches hard, but doesn’t drop the manifestation. The blue one slams to a halt as it runs into her line. Afa can feel the jolt, and the heaviness that means she’s holding someone - twice over, because the white one barely even moved before she caught it.

They both fight. It’s hard to hold on - more than just them moving, there’s something inside each of them that’s pushing her manifestation away. It feels like the time that the Doctors had her try her manifestation on Bun and he didn’t want to cooperate, or the time they told her to try it on Bix and told Bix to try and get away.

The blue one is on the closest line to her, a little too far to touch her with the blue arrow-pole. The white one is two lines further back. Neither of them can reach anyone in the room, not even the lab technician as long as he stays behind the examination chair. That’s stopping them, right? They can’t go any further, she doesn’t have to -

But he said attack, too.

Afa can’t be uncooperative. This is important, it has to be. They’ll use the anklet if she doesn’t do it, and the anklet hurts pain-scale 7 even when they only use it in a short burst. And if she’s _really_ bad - she doesn’t want to be terminated. She _can’t_ be uncooperative.

She doesn’t want to attack them either, but she has to.

It’s not hard, even when Afa’s struggling to hold the initial manifestation. She reaches _in_ again and then _focuses_ , building pressure on the end of a line - the one in front, the one the blue something is stuck to - until it forms a round ball.

Afa takes a breath to brace herself. Then she waves her arm to send the ball rolling down the thread.

The something _moves off the line._

_How_?

Sliding up and down the line, yes, Bun and Bix had both done that, and she’d dropped the manifestation by accident sometimes - but the lines are _still there_ and the blue something is still stuck to a line, but it’s _not the same one._

The ball hits the other end of the empty line and disappears. Afa hesitates; looks back at the Doctors. Doctor Mallory is talking very fast on the lab phone, he’s not even looking at her. That means she should wait, right? He don’t like it when she manifests and they aren’t observing, and this is new, he’ll want to take notes -

The blue one does something; there’s a flash she can only half-see.

Then a glowing circle appears on the floor in front of her. A second after it appears, a pole with an arrow _shink_ s out of it, like an autoinjector except so much bigger.

Another glowing circle appears right under Afa’s feet. She scrambles back, but another one appears - there are more, all around the room, and Doctor Harris is screaming again - the lab technician never stopped screaming - her back bangs into the examination chair and there’s nowhere else to go. She squints her eyes and braces herself.

Nothing happens. Or - there’s more shouting from everywhere, but no more _shinks_. Afa blinks her eyes open as someone grabs her and shoves her forward again - oh, she didn’t drop the manifestation, that’s good right?

“Fucking useless - stop them! Kill them! Do something!” the lab technician shouts at her.

She forms another ball, sends it rolling toward the white something. It moves out of the way. Afa can feel it now, the way it _pushes_ until it’s touching another line, then _snaps_ from one to the other.

The lab technician is still shouting. She tries again and again, but every time she rolls a ball down the line they just move - they both do, blue and white. She’s not _fast_ enough.

“IT’S OKAY!” the white something shouts, and - they’ve been shouting the whole time, but - is it talking to her? It’s looking at her. 

“YOU’RE VERY GOOD AT MAGIC!” the white one says, “BUT MAYBE YOU SHOULD TRY PRACTICING IT NOT ON US??”

She hesitates.

The lab technician is _still_ shouting at her, but he’s not doing anything else. She can’t see Doctor Harris. Doctor Mallory is on top of the counter, talking on the phone again. Maybe she can just -

“...terminate the Beta series,” Doctor Mallory is saying.

Afa drops her manifestation and runs for the open door.

The blue one is still holding the arrow-pole, it can’t grab her. Afa dodges the white one (it goes “WHAT-” as she passes it) and slams the door behind her. Maybe it can block the transmitter, she doesn’t know, but the anklet has a range limit - she has to keep running.

Left down the first hall. Straight until the stairs. She crashes into a lab technician - that’s fine, they don’t carry transmitters. Afa keeps running.

Most of the doors she passes are closed and dark; empty offices and exam rooms they don’t need to use today. Some aren’t.

Halfway to the stairs, the anklet activates.

Afa is dimly aware of having collapsed to the floor, of her face pressed to the white tile, of the whine that’s escaping from between her teeth.

She’s mostly aware of the waves of pulsing pain coming from her leg.

It feels like it’s going to last forever. It always does. But it _hurts_ and - she can’t keep count, the numbers fall out of her head, but it has to have been more than five seconds. Maybe they’re not going to stop it, maybe they’ll just keep it on until something breaks inside and she gets terminated, and she tries to pull herself forwards, but her arms just jerk when she tries to move them. She can’t get _away_.

_Finally_ , it stops.

She breathes. Then starts pushing herself up. Her leg is still heavy and numb, but it’ll be enough to walk if she can just get upright.

“ARE YOU OKAY?”

Afa’s hands slide out from under her.

An inch before her nose hits the floor, something catches her shoulders. She braces to be hauled up - but they just hold her until she gets her hands back under her, then steady her as she struggles to her feet.

It’s the white something from the examination room. This close, she can see black sockets where eyes should be, squinting at her like it’s worried. Behind it is Doctor Torres, on the floor halfway out of her office with her face turned away and a transmitter lying beside her hand.

The transmitter is broken. Afa tries to run.

She’s not even two doors further down the hall when her leg twitches wrong and she trips. Her face hits her shoulder as she catches herself, and it dampens the thin cloth - her nose keeps running, and there are tears dripping off her chin.

“OH NO!” Hands again, but this time instead of steadying her they pull up. She kicks, but the angle is wrong and her legs just wave in the air.

The hallway blurs as she moves. A second later there is one arm under her back, one arm hooked under her knees, and a grin that’s nothing but teeth facing her straight on.

“WORRY NOT! I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL LET YOU USE MY LEGS! AND ALSO THE REST OF ME, TO CARRY YOU.” It - the Great Papyrus? - pauses. “ER… WHERE ARE WE GOING?”

_We_ going? Why -

Why doesn’t matter.

“The Subject Room.” Her voice cracks in the middle and she has to cough.  

“OF COURSE!! THE SUBJECT ROOM! WHERE IS THE SUBJECT ROOM?”

How can he not- “Room 302-B. _Please_.” Her voice cracks again. She’s not fast enough, he said he’d carry her, _please-_

“I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THAT IS, BUT YOU CAN YELL DIRECTIONS!” The Great Papyrus starts to run.

He’s _fast_. The doors are blurring past fast enough she can’t even try to read them. She leans over and he lets her twist so that she can see ahead.

There’s more shouting and screaming, and all of it sounds like Doctors and lab technicians. A lab technician runs out of one of the side hallways, looks up, and throws herself against the wall to get out of their way. As the hallway flashes past, Afa catches a glimpse of a fuzzy white head sticking out of shiny plates like the blue something had been wearing.

“Stairs here! Up two floors.” She’s done this test before, though only in the obstacle room. And the person running it has never been carrying her.

“GOT IT!”

Afa’s stomach feels like it’s being left behind when the Great Papyrus turns and rushes up the stairway, but his arms under her don’t even tilt. In seconds, they’re at the landing, and crashing through into the third floor hall.

“The left door!” Afa lunges forward, trying to see the observation window. It’s a bad angle, she can’t see low enough, but there’s definitely _someone_ in there - a lab technician or a Doctor - and there _shouldn’t_ be, she was the only one they were working with today. She needs to get in there _NOW._

Her feet hit the floor and she yanks on the handle. They won’t know what’s going on, but if it’s just one Doctor - with everything else that’s happening today maybe this will get lost in the shuffle, maybe she can hide them until the Doctors reconsider, maybe the Great Papyrus will -

The door isn’t opening.

No, _NO_! She tries the handle again, bangs on the metal. They never lock it on the outside, not during the day, it _has to open_. Afa pulls back, tries to draw her manifestation, but it won’t stick to the door. Handle again, it’s still not opening - please it has to _it has to -_

“STAND BACK!”

Afa is pushed aside and a white oddly-shaped rod _clangs_ into the door, clattering onto the floor before vanishing. It’s followed by more, and Afa, pressed against the wall, can’t hear anything except the _clang clang clang clatter BANG_.

“HMMM.”

The door’s not open. It’s even less likely to open now - the handle is broken off and there are dents all over it. Afa distantly realizes that her ears are ringing.

“THIS WILL NEED A MORE FORCEFUL APPROACH. PLEASE DON’T BE ALARMED, NEW HUMAN!”

The Great Papyrus moves back, until he’s pressed against the wall opposite from the door. Then he leans forward, and - wait, his head is - why are his arms- _what?_

It sounds like teeth grinding together, multiplied by a hundred. His head squishes, mouth pushing outwards and teeth getting sharper. His elbows and knees slide up, the forearms elongating, and he shakes off his gloves, pulling out a… hand? that looks too small to have fit in the fingers. A long cord stretches out behind him as he falls forwards, catching himself on all fours.

The Great Papyrus pats the ground with one… arm? Forward leg? He puffs air out and steps forward, the cord curling sideways around his back legs. Then he looks at Afa and… bounces, straightening his (much longer) neck and somehow managing a cheerful expression even with a much sharper grin.

She stares.

The Great Papyrus takes a step toward her. She takes a step back. He takes another step, and - she needs to get into the subject room, she can’t run. Frozen, she watches as he comes closer and stretches his neck out, close enough to bite -

His nose touches her arm, and she twitches, eyes closing as she braces herself. The touch withdraws, and… comes back, pushing a little harder. She opens her eyes and looks down.

The Great Papyrus peers up at her, neck stretched out almost flat from his back. He pushes again and Afa stumbles back, one hand against the wall to steady herself.

He draws his head back and looks between Afa and the door a few times. Then he snorts, puffing air over the top of her head, and retreats to the wall across from the door.

It starts with just a few sparks, escaping from between his teeth as he stares hard at the battered door. The ringing in Afa’s ears starts to get louder, and she presses a hand to one, trying to squeeze it away. Then it gets even worse and - no, it’s not her ear, it’s coming from the Great Papyrus. The sparks come more and more, blue in both her eyes, fuzzing around his mouth until she can’t even see his teeth anymore.

She watches, frozen, as his jaw clacks open. The high-pitched whine peaks, turns into a piercing cry, and blue-white light bursts from his open mouth, bright enough that she has to close her eyes and turn her face away. Afa can feel the heat and the prickle on her skin, but it doesn’t touch her.

The cry ends with a snap, followed by a grinding sound. Afa peaks back at the Great Papyrus to see him stretching upwards, face shrinking back to how it was when he carried her. He opens and closes his jaw as the teeth shrink and lose their sharpness. Then he laughs.

“NYEH-HEH-HEH! NO BUILDING IS A MATCH FOR THE GREAT PAPYRUS!”

Afa twists back to see the door - the doorframe, bent and scorched. Her foot skids on the tile as she scrambles inside.

“Stay back!”

Afa stops mid-step. Doctor Mcleish is breathing hard, eyes big and mouth open. He has a needle in one hand, and he’s waving it at her like he’ll stick her if she comes closer. His other hand is holding Bree’s elbow, pulling it above her head. She’s hiccupping quietly and her face is all scrunched up. Afa takes a slow breath.

_In_. _Out._

Doctor Mcleish shouts, waving his hands around to try and grab her Manifestation. Afa dodges the needle and grabs Bree around the waist, skipping back away from the Doctor trapped on the thin purple line.

It’s a little bit funny - she’s listened to the Doctors for forever, but he’s easier to hold in her Manifestation than even Beven is. Way easier than the Great Papyrus.

Bree squirms, and Afa spins her around, crouching down to look her in the face. Up close, the hiccups are a lot louder - more like jumpy sobs, and her face is all wet too.

“Did the Doctor inject you?” Afa demands. Bree just hiccups, more tears leaking out. “Bree, this is _important_. Did he inject you?”

Bree keeps hiccupping instead of saying anything. Afa tries shaking her, but the hiccups just get worse. She pulls on Bree’s arm, trying to check, but she can’t _tell._ There are always needle marks on Bree, there’s new ones just from the morning blood draw!

Then she realizes Bree is shaking her head no.

Afa feels like Bun just dropped her. “Okay.” Her voice squeaks and she coughs. “Okay. Did he -”

That’s when Beven thuds into her side, crying loudly. Afa twists around to grab him and he shoves his damp face into her armpit. “You ca- you can’t - uncop - No!”

“You can’t be un-coppertive!” Bix is right behind him, with the words Beven is crying too hard to get out. She has the end of her smock twisted up in her hand, yanking it like she can pull herself forward. Afa told her to stop that, she’s going to rip it and then they’ll be in trouble -

Like any of them can be in more trouble than they’re in right now. Afa can feel a bad laugh stuck in her throat again.

Before she can think of anything to say, she feels her Manifestation _clang_ like something hit it, and fall apart. “HEY!” yells the Great Papyrus.

Afa twists around, panicked - but as Doctor Mcleish starts to move, impossibly familiar blue light surrounds him and he _thuds_ flat on the floor as his local gravity increases. Afa looks around the room, frantic. That’s _Bun’s_ Manifestation, but he’s not there? Bix is shouting his name, but he can’t be there, he’s -

The Great Papyrus’ hand is glowing the same blue, in both her eyes.

The Doctor screams. Blue rods - lighter than that first shade, but also, undeniably, familiar - shoot up through his arms, pinning them down to the ground. Afa’s breath catches, and she jerks backwards, but… there isn’t any blood. The Doctor twitches and screams louder (Bix is screaming too, and Beven is crying even more, she can feel his face making the side of her smock wet), but Afa can’t see any damage around the base of the rods. They’re just… there. Glowing.

“YOU SHOULDN’T MOVE!” The Great Papyrus says, glaring at the Doctor. He’s framed by the busted door, the top of his head almost touching the twisted metal remaining at the top. The red cloth around his neck falls behind him, blocking the light from the hall. “YOU ALSO SHOULDN’T HURT TINY HUMANS WHO ARE CHECKING ON EVEN TINIER HUMANS! YOU’RE NOT VERY GOOD AT NOT DOING THINGS YOU SHOULDN’T DO.”

Something catches Afa’s eye, and she glances over just in time to see a white rod vanish. The hole it left behind sparks, lights on the handheld device flickering and dying.

Distracted by the broken transmitter, Afa misses Bix slipping around her until she’s already out of arm’s reach. Her face is red and blotchy and she still has her smock clenched in one tiny fist, but she stomps up to the Great Papyrus and says urgently, “You can’t use Manifestations on the Doctors!”

The Great Papyrus stares down at her. Afa tries to get up, but Bree grabbed the back of her smock at some point, and Beven is still crying into her armpit. As she tries to untangle them, the Great Papyrus slowly looks towards Doctor Mcleish, who has stopped screaming and is just lying there, pinned to the floor. Then he looks back down at Bix, who isn’t even as tall as his legs.

“YES I CAN,” he says.

It’s silent for a moment, except for Beven’s quiet crying.

“You can’t!” Bix insists.

“I CAN!” The Great Papyrus points to Doctor Mcleish like they didn’t already know he was there. “YOUR SIBLING CAN TOO! EVERYONE CAN USE MAGIC ON THE DOCTORS! THEY’RE VERY BAD DOCTORS. AND ALSO HUGE JERKS.”

Bix has no answer to that, and turns to look at Afa. Afa stares back, just as lost.

_Bip-bip-bip beeep bip_

“OH!” The Great Papyrus suddenly has a phone in his hand. “I HAVE TO TAKE THIS.” He holds it up to his - to where his ear should be, and announces “I FOUND THE TINY HUMANS!!!”

There’s a distant sound of someone yelling; Afa can almost distinguish the words from where she’s crouched on the ground, but the Great Papyrus doesn’t twitch, even though it has to be loud enough to hurt. “WE’RE IN THE SUBJECT ROOM!” he says. Then, “ROOM B-32!”

“Room 302-B,” Afa says quietly.

“ROOM 302-B!” the Great Papyrus corrects, without changing his tone at all. “YOU JUST HAVE TO RUN AND THEN YOU KEEP RUNNING UNTIL YOU REACH THE STAIRS. NO, THE OTHER STAIRS. I THINK??”

“budge up a bit bro. you’re blocking the view.”

“OR! YOU CAN JUST FOLLOW MY BROTHER!” The phone disappears, and Bix scrambles back towards Afa as the Great Papyrus steps further into the room.

A smaller something stands in the doorway behind him, white and hard-looking like the Great Papyrus, but covered in bulky blue and black clothing instead of the Great Papyrus’s white and red. His head is rounder, sockets bigger, and teeth set in a wide grin; like the Great Papyrus, he has no eyes, but two little lights float in the dark spaces where eyes should be. They move back and forth, scanning the room, before they settle on Afa.

The Great Papyrus makes a blowing-out-air sound. “SANS! WHILE YOU WERE LAZING ABOUT, I FOUND THE TINY HUMANS WE WERE SEARCHING FOR!”

“nice going.” Afa can hear the words coming from him, but the Sans’s mouth doesn’t seem to move. His eye lights flick towards the Great Papyrus and still for a moment before returning to observe Afa and the others.

_Is he a Doctor_?

Afa’s feels her breathing go fast. The Great Papyrus isn’t a Doctor, he’s too loud and too big, and just too… not. He hasn’t been interested in her experimental eye, or tried to take notes on her Manifestation, or told her to do anything except stop using her Manifestation on him. But he might be a lab assistant.

The Doctors fight sometimes. Afa isn’t supposed to listen to it, but sometimes they forget she’s in the room. Doctor Mallory said that other scientists would kill for the opportunity they have, for the chance to study their subjects.

Bix has stopped just out of reach again, hopping from foot to foot like she _always_ does until someone tells her to stop. Afa wants to just lunge forward and grab her, but Beven has wrapped his arms around Afa’s chest, sobs quieted but breathing still wet and hitched, and Bree is still pressed against her back. She can’t watch Bix and the Sans at the same time, and her eyes keep darting back and forth between them.

The Sans (Doctor Sans?) tips back a bit, then forwards again without moving his feet. He hasn’t stopped smiling. Afa tries to picture him in a lab coat, watching one of the Manifestation trials from the viewing area while leaning on the railing. Studying the monitors as she runs on the treadmill. Watching a lab technician draw blood - The Great Papyrus? No, that doesn’t work - while he discusses her statistics with the other Doctors. (Pressing the transmitter - but the Great Papyrus didn’t like them, he wouldn’t have destroyed them without permission? The Sans saw the transmitter broken on the floor, she saw the lights move in that direction, but he doesn’t look angry. Is he just waiting until later?)

The Sans’s lights move in the Great Papyrus’s direction again. “gonna do introductions?”

“OF COURSE!” The Great Papyrus is watching them too. He sounds… something she doesn’t know the word for. Excited, but concerned? Relieved? “I AM THE BEST AT INTRODUCTIONS. THE VERY TINY ONE BEHIND THE LESS TINY ONE IS BREE!! I DON’T KNOW WHAT ANYONE ELSE’S NAME IS.”

Oh no, had she really - “Beta-Three,” Afa says forcefully.

The Great Papyrus blinks at her, looking confused. The Sans looks at her too; his mouth doesn’t change at all, but the little glowing dots in his eyes feel like they’re studying her, like this is one of the important tests and how she does is going to matter. Bree is still behind her; Afa hopes very hard that she doesn’t move.

“REALLY? BREE IS A VERY NICE NAME. NOT THAT BETA-THREE ISN’T ALSO A VERY NICE NAME!” The Great Papyrus waves his hands in the air in front of him. “BREE IS JUST AN EVEN NICER NAME!!”

“Her designation is MIs6-Beta-3,” Afa says. The back of her neck feels cold. Beven squirms a bit, but she doesn’t let him go. “Subjects don’t have names.”

“Subjects don’t have names,” Bix echoes, backing up another step towards Afa. They’d all had that lesson. Bree, Bix, Beven, ~~Bun~~ , Afa… those were for when they were in the Subject Room alone. And they weren’t _really_ names anyway, they were just… shortening their designations a bit. She was just saying Beta-Three fast, that was all. That wasn’t enough to get in trouble. (Please)

“names are funny things,” the Sans says. He’s still watching her, the little lights where his eyes should be flickering just a bit. “one person starts calling you something, then everybody else picks it up, then you start signing it on your house loan and it’s ‘oh hey, guess that’s my name now.’”

He shrugs and holds out a hand. “nice to meet you. i’m sans. what do you want me to call you?”

Afa stares at him. So does Bix. So do Beven and Bree, peeking out from under each arm.

“You’re not…” she starts. Stops. Swallows.

The white above Sans’s eye socket moves like he’s raising an eyebrow. He doesn’t say anything else. The Great Papyrus has put his gloves over his mouth like Beven does when he’s stopping himself from making noise, and he’s… hopping a little bit, back and forth like Bix is doing.

Sans is still looking at her calmly. Not… not like the Doctors do, impatiently waiting for the result they want. Afa is abruptly very aware of Bree at her back, silent and still and just watching.

The Great Papyrus attacked Doctor Mcleish with Bun’s Manifestation.

“You’re not Doctors, are you.” Afa whispers.

Sans winks. “what, like these jokers? nah. we’re just a couple boneheads, skulking around.”

There’s a muffled noise from the Great Papyrus, but when Afa looks at him, he still has his gloves pressed to his face. Sans is watching her like he’s looking for something again; she tenses, but he just puts his hands in his pockets. “no, huh? we’ll work on that.”

Afa doesn’t know what he was looking for, but somehow, she doesn’t think it matters. She stands, hands coming up to rest on Bree and Beven’s shoulders. Beven switches to clinging to her waist, while Bree seems content with a fistfull of Afa’s smock as she watches the not-Doctors with big eyes. Bix is still a couple paces ahead, examining the Great Papyrus from a safe-ish distance.

“My designation,” Afa says carefully, “Is MIs6-Alpha. I want you to call me Afa.”


	2. Undyne

 

“I FOUND THE TINY HUMANS!!!”

“Papyrus, where the HECK are you???” The phone creaks in Undyne’s fist, only Alphys’s upgrades keeping it from being crushed.

“THE SUBJECT ROOM!”

“Where. Is. The subject room??”

“ROOM B-32!” Where is - “ROOM 302-B!” Great.

The conversation does not improve from there.

Undyne stabs the call end button with her thumb, cutting off the dial tone, and dismisses the phone into her dimensional pocket.

“NGAHHHHHHH!!!” 

The stupid long chair against the wall shatters apart on impact, both armrests and the lower half of the seat clattering to the floor.

The human who’d been yelling for the kid to kill her lets out a weird squeaking noise from where he’s tied up on top of the shelves. Undyne ignores him, dismissing her spear with a sharp gesture.

_Damn_ it, Papyrus _knows_ he’s not supposed to be running off alone. He’s only even on this mission because he _and_ Sans insisted!

When Undyne had smashed in the door, her immediate scan of the room had only counted three humans. The kid, sitting like a lump on the chair, hadn’t even registered at first - not compared to the moving, screaming scientists.

Then the assholes had tried _hiding behind the kid_. 

When Undyne had heard “human children, possibly with magic” she’d kind of expected… well, she’d expected Frisk. Tiny, curious, and so freaking determined to end every fight with a smile. 

This kid looked about the same size Frisk was in the Underground. Paler, no hair, wearing a weird papery dress thing instead of kiddie stripes… but in the underground or on the surface, Frisk had _never_ looked that… that _checked out_. Even when the kid was BATTLING them, it was like dealing with a zombie! The kid hadn’t shown any real PASSION until they ran for the door!!

And then Papyrus had yelled “I”LL GET THEM!” and just TOOK OFF, leaving Undyne here to deal with these STUPID COWARDS daring to call themselves SCIENTISTS!!!

The monologue transitioned from internal to external at some point, and there's a spear in her hand ready to smash something else (not anything with papers or electronics, they’ll need those, but the sink can’t be _that_ important), but a BANG-thud makes Undyne pause.

The scientists were pathetically easy to capture after the kid dropped their magic, even three against one. Alphys had made everyone this sticky tape stuff for tying up prisoners while she was trying to distract herself from the evil scientists thing, and Undyne had stuck the prisoners on top of the shelving to keep them in place while she was tracking down Papyrus

One had just managed to roll off, crashing into the computer on the way down.

Undyne prods him with her spear. He groans. The computer looks… salvageable? According to Alphys it’s the box thing that’s important anyway, not the screen.

Probably a bad idea to keep ignoring the prisoners though. Undyne grimaces.

Fine. Papyrus _isn’t_ helpless; he’s actually really good at the capturing humans instead of killing them thing that the guard all has to do now. He’s given lessons on it, even. 

She had been worried that he would stop and try talking to these freaks calling themselves scientists while they were still in the middle of storming the building, but he’s been surprisingly good about efficiently taking out the humans. Until _running off after the kid_ , anyway. Undyne knows what it looks like when a fight is _personal_ , and the big lug is going to be answering a LOT of questions when this is over.

But if Sans is with him, she can _probably_ let them sort out the kids while the rest of the guard takes care of the fighting. Sans may have become less of a weirdo since they all reached the surface, but he’s still paranoid enough to watch Papyrus’s back. Even if one of the kids gets confused about who’s the rescuer here and tries attacking them again.

That settled, Undyne sticks her head out of the room and whistles loudly. The echoes fade into a muffled clanking, as the nearest pair of royal guards react to the signal.

Three seconds later, 01 and 02 come charging around the corner. 

When King Asgore had given his approval for this mission, Undyne had known that going up against adult humans on their own ground, even wimpy scientist humans, would be more dangerous than anything they had faced underground. She had ordered the guard to move in pairs as long as they were in the facility, to keep an eye out, and to do everything with PASSION. 

01 and 02 hadn’t needed the order.

“Ms. Undyne!” “captain.” The partners come to attention in perfect unison.

Undyne assesses her guards with a critical eye. Neither one of them looks injured, though 02’s unpolished armour has a suspiciously shinier patch where something must have scraped against it. The dragon is moving fine, so whatever it is can wait until they’re back at Newer Home.

“Report,” she orders

“We’re nearly done with the first floor!” 01 replies promptly. “Lesser and Greater are just doing one more sweep to make sure nobody’s, like, hiding anywhere. Dogamy and Dogaressa went upstairs already. We were gonna follow them?”

“Take these bozos to the capture zone first.” Undyne jerks a thumb over her shoulder. “I’ll check on the Dogi.”

“Yes, Ms. Undyne!” 01 salutes so fiercely that his hand _clangs_ against his helmet. 02 doesn’t say anything, but nods sharply.

Undyne waits long enough to see them heft the prisoners, then charges off down the hallway. Dogamy and Dogaressa are good guards, but their fighting abilities are far outmatched by their ability to track. Running ahead on their own, out of earshot of anyone else…

She’s probably being paranoid.

The dull white tile on the floor _clacks_ under her boots. Undyne speeds up, noting as she does the signs of battle: dents and scorch marks in the bland grey walls, cheap grey doors blasted off their hinges and crumpled on the ground. She passes a filing cabinet that looks like it exploded, ripped pages papering the blast zone.

It pisses her off how _boring_ the evil lab looks. Proper evil scientist’s labs in her human history shows have glass beakers with ominously glowing liquids everywhere, weird sparking machines, and tubes with pieces of humans floating inside. So far, everything she’s seen here could have been in an ordinary human doctor’s office. Even the weird lack of windows is more annoying than atmospheric, especially with the buzzing fluorescent lights all over the ceilings.

Hell, ALPHYS made a better evil scientist’s lab all by herself than these pathetic scientist wannabes did, and Alphys is so far from evil that Undyne’s lips draw into a snarl at just the THOUGHT of comparing them.

She swings into a stairwell that could have been from any boring office building, and takes them three at a time. The second floor is missing the signs of battle-damage, not even a dent in the wall to show where the Dogi have been.

Undyne advances, listening.

A sudden storm of furious barking, and she’s barreling down the hall. She veers into a side hallway, just in time to catch a human (not even wearing a _labcoat)_ with their back turned, easing closed another of those grey doors.

“HEY!!!”

Behind the door, the barking cuts off for a moment, then starts up again with a new energy. The human spins around, brandishing a pair of scissors.

She bares her teeth. “How about a REAL fight?” 

The human bares their teeth right back at her. Undyne’s grin widens a few honest millimetres. This one might actually be a _challenge._

There’s no atmospheric howling wind; just the slight flickering of the lights and the angry barking from her trapped guards. Good enough - if they’re barking, they’re probably okay. 

The human notices the circle appearing under their feet just in time to dive out of the way before the spear bursts upward. Undyne follows it with second set of spear traps, and a third hard on its heels, herding them closer. 

The human takes one or two glancing hits, but they get the idea quickly -  almost faster than she can react, they lunge. 

Undyne slashes with the point of her spear and spins it to deflect them. They dodge past her, against the wall. The scissor blades screech as they scratch across her armor.

She whirls to see the human sprinting down the main hallway.

“You’re not getting away from ME!” 

Green magic shimmers over her spear. Undyne charges. Armour might slow her down a bit, but not enough for some wimpy scientist human to outrun her!

One sweep of her spear, and the human jerks abruptly to a halt, shield flashing to life in front of them as their SOUL turns green. A small armada of spears float, poised to attack, in the air surrounding the battle. 

Undyne laughs. “Come on and FACE ME!!”

The human spins, shield spinning with them to form a shimmering barrier across the battlefield. “Fucking _monster_ ,” They spit, glare fixed on Undyne. “You’re chasing after me, when those mutts are bleeding out on the floor?”

The fire of a good fight is abruptly dunked into a snowbank.

It’s OBVIOUSLY a lie. Monsters don’t even have blood, and the dogs were barking up a storm just a minute ago. But a human with those eyes, a human in a place like this - they’d _do it_ , wouldn’t they? 

The fight against Frisk had been as fun as it was frustrating, a climactic battle against evil for the good of all monsters. But Frisk was never evil, not really. This human _is_.

“NGAHHH!” Undyne gnashes her teeth. “THEN I’LL DEFEAT YOU FAST!!”

With a flash, her summoned spears streak towards the human.

They manage to block _one_.

When Undyne finally pauses, momentarily out of spears, the human is staggering. They pant, hands shaking almost enough to drop their weapon.

...Which means she needs to be careful, since she can’t actually KILL the human. Even an evil human.

After the King had declared that the Guard needed to be non-lethal, Undyne had practiced Papyrus’s special blunted attacks with the same PASSION that drove all of her training. She hadn’t slept until she perfected them, constricting their ATK power until she could have even sparred with Sans, if he ever got off his lazy ass to try it.

But despite all that effort, it’s only been a few years since Undyne learned them. Decades of training have made most of her attacks reflex - but these still need a crucial half-second of focus to summon.

Time that the human uses, stabbing through the shield at her unprotected face.

Undyne shouts, reeling back. Her spears shoot forward.

The human crumples.

“HA!” Undyne steadies her footing and grins wide, ignoring the pain as her cheek stretches. “Thought you could take ME by surprise!?”

A moment passes. The lights flicker.

Her grin falters. “Wait, shit…”

Gingerly, Undyne reaches out with her boot and traps the scissors underneath it, pulling back until they slip out of the human’s limp hand. Then she kicks them away. As they rattle down the hall into the distance, Undyne kneels down and roughly prods the human. “Hey asshole, are you alive!?”

There’s no response.

With a sinking feeling, Undyne pulls up her magic, reaches out, and CHECKS the human.

0.1/45 HP.

…

…

...Hey, not dead!

That established, Undyne pulls out the sticky tape and makes quick work of securing the human. She slings them over her shoulder.

The dogs have stopped barking by the time she gets back to the room, but they start up again at the sound of her boots on the tile. “It’s me!!” Undyne yells before kicking the door in.

The unlocked door rebounds off the wall with a crunching sound, flattening a garbage can. Like every other room in this shitty place, it’s windowless; Undyne’s shadow stretches long in the fluorescent light from the hallway. 

Further in, Dogaressa scratches and scrabbles at a wide window. “Captain! Let us out!”

“Right!” The human’s bulk interferes with a proper swing, so Undyne focuses a moment and summons a spear at her side. One _smash_ breaks the glass. A second tears a hole through the wire mesh underneath. Dismissing the spear, Undyne kicks high and stomps the edge of the wire down with an armoured boot, cracking the concrete half-wall underneath it.

Dogaressa, having retreated a couple feet back from the carnage, shakes glass shards off her fur. She turns, revealing a treadmill behind her, and with a gentle grip helps Dogamy to his feet. Her husband whines quietly as he stands, dust staining a rip in the side of his robe.

“How bad is it?” Undyne demands sharply.

“Not bad, Captain,” Dogamy says. He doesn’t try to stop leaning on his wife, who nuzzles his cheek. “I’m only 40 HP down. I can fight!”

Dogaressa growls loudly, nose pointed straight at the unconscious human.

Undyne snorts, hiding her relief. “What, with that? Nah. Physical wounds are tricky.” She hefts the human a little higher. “We’re all heading to the capture zone, and _you’re_ going to sit down and get healed!” 

Dogaressa is clearly worried as well, given how she keeps glancing at Dogamy’s wound between growls at the human. Still, she shakes her head. “We can’t stop yet. We need to find the puppies!”

“We have their scent now,” Dogamy adds. “They’ve been caged in here too!”

“That’s how _he_ caught us.” Dogaressa’s snarl is fearsome, though it trails into a whine when she turns back to sniff at her husband.

“Papyrus found the kids,” Undyne says. Well, if you used ‘found’ to mean ‘pelted down the hallway after while completely ignoring his partner’ anyway. “He and Sans can keep them out of _too_ much trouble while we deal with these assholes.”

The Dogi relax.

“They’re good boys,” Dogaressa says.

Dogamy nods, a small whimper escaping. “They’ll make the puppies feel safe.”

Undyne waits, still encumbered by the prisoner, as Dogaressa assists Dogamy over the half-wall where the window used to be. So the kids were there, huh?

It’s pretty bare. Apart from the treadmill shoved against the wall, there’s a few plastic-encased machines sitting on metal tables, a tangle of wires, and enough clear floor space to pace back and forth. There’s a keypad on Undyne’s side of the metal door between the rooms, but - she checks - none on the inside. The only chairs are in Undyne’s half of the room, in front of keyboards and screens gone dark.

Curious, Undyne reaches over to one and moves the mouse. 

The screen blinks to life, revealing a paused video of a _really_ little kid on the treadmill. Undyne’s not the greatest at judging human ages, but they look younger than any of the kids at Toriel’s school. They’re bald, like the magic kid earlier, and wearing the same kind of papery dress thing; white wires drape through the arm holes, attaching to one of the plastic machines.

Undyne clicks play. The kid starts to run, weird wavy lines scrolling across the other half of the screen. They’re pretty fast for a kid - faster than most of the ones of Frisk’s soccer team, and they’re running without stopping. Undyne squints at the screen. Is it just the camera, or is there an orange flicker around the kid’s legs?

Running kid trips. They fall face-first on the treadmill, arms splaying out to the sides in a futile effort to catch themself; Undyne grimaces in sympathy as the rubber track throws them off. They slide to a halt underneath the table where the wires attach. Doesn’t look like anything’s bleeding when the kid sits up, but half their face has gone red where they hit the track, and they’re holding their arm like it hurts. Their face screws up, ready to cry.

Then they tip their head up as if listening and look over at something offscreen - from the angle, it’s the window into the next room. Whatever it was, it makes the kid scramble to their feet and clamber back onto the treadmill. A second later they’re running again.

Undyne hovers her mouse to check. The video is an hour long.

“Captain?”

She jolts, mouse skittering across the screen. The video pauses.

The Dogi are by the door to the hall, Dogamy with one paw slung over Dogaressa’s shoulders. Dogamy whines near-silently in concern.

Right. Still a job to do here. Undyne gives the frozen kid one last look and heads for the door.

Undyne keeps her guard up, ready to materialize another spear - but either there are no other humans on the second floor, or they’re not brave enough to face her. It’s a quiet trip back down the stairs.

The Royal Guard had staked out the ‘capture zone’ in an open area just inside the entrance, claimed due to its ample space and only two access points - into the building and out of it. As Undyne and the Dogi approach, the sound of growling rises over the quiet groans of the tied-up scientists. 

“Delivery!!” Undyne announces. Some of the captives wince. Grillby, lurking by the entranceway, gives her a nod without looking away from the prisoner pile.

Doggo startles, nearly stumbling over the nearest human. He barks in greeting. “Captain! Hey! All good here… nobody’s moving on my watch!!!” He notices the Dogi. “You two! Hi! Got more humans?”

“Just _this_ asshole.” Undyne bumps the human on her shoulder so Doggo can see him. “Where did Woshua get to?”

“You passed him! He’s in the closet over there, said the humans were too dirty.” Doggo shrugs. “They seem pretty clean to me… he didn’t want a dog treat to calm down though. Sans vanished again,” he adds.

“Yeah, knew that,” Undyne grumbles. 

She hefts the prisoner again and jabs an elbow towards the closet. “You, back there,” she orders Dogamy.

Her guardsman whimpers at the order, giving her a pitiful look. Slowly, he makes his way towards the open closet door. Dogaressa follows, lending an elbow for the few short steps.

“Dirty, dirty, dirty! Wosh u side!”

The second the dogs cross the doorframe, a spray of green healing-magic-infused water bursts from the closet. Dogaressa leaps back, out of the way. Dogamy, less lucky, hunches in the path of the spray, giving new meaning to the term ‘hangdog’.

Undyne winces in sympathy. Woshua is a pain to work with, but with the Queen negotiating with human government, and the former New Home guards needed to ensure that Newer Home wasn’t completely unprotected, the waterfall resident had been the only healing volunteer they could get without revealing why they needed one. He’s effective, if slow.

“Who showed up here last?” Undyne asks, turning to Doggo.

“01 and 02! They dropped those guys off.” He points vaguely toward the pile. “And 03 and 04 dropped some off right before that, they tried to go out a window. Also Doge dropped by... she said she’s bored??”

“She can suck it up,” Undyne says flatly. Somebody has to guard their transportation, and Doge lost the coin toss.

“Okay!” Doggo fidgets.

More than usual. 

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, Captain!” More fidgeting.

She waits. Doggo crumbles in seconds. “I left my biscuits in the truck?” He gives her his best puppy dog eyes, aimed somewhere around her shoulder.

Undyne rolls her eyes. “Take a smoke break, I’ll guard your post with Grillby. Tell Doge and the others that we’ll be moving the prisoners out to the trucks soon.” She nods at Grillby, who lifts a hand briefly in reply.

“Yes, Captain!” Doggo yips, tail ticking in a wag. With one last fierce growl at the prisoner pile, he bounds off.

Undyne almost drops her prisoner on the floor, then thinks better of it and crouches down to slide him carefully off. 

“Hey, Woshua!” she calls, “Give this one a spray when you’re done with Dogamy.”

“Wosh their SOULS!” 

“...Right,” Undyne mutters.

Undyne maneuvers around the pile of groaning humans and takes position guarding the outer door. She glares at the prisoners. One by one, the undertone of whispering and groaning quiets as the humans meet her gaze and realize someone much more intimidating has taken over.

Interestingly, the ones near Grillby are already silent.

The older monster leans against the wall by the archway arms crossed, and flames flickering steadily. His gaze sweeps across the tied-up humans, settling on one or another seemingly at random. The nearest of the humans cringe away from his feet, like the fire is somehow going to lash out and burn them.

“...the kids?” he asks.

It takes Undyne a moment to realize he’s talking to her. “Papyrus and Sans have them,” she replies.

Grillby nods.

The minutes tick by. Undyne listens to Woshua’s muffled scolding, absently calculating how long it will be until they’re done. 

“Excuse me, ah, Captain?”

The voice comes from the middle of the pile. Under Undyne’s gimlet stare, a skinny figure with glasses struggles to lever themself upright without the use of arms or legs. They settle half-leaning on another prisoner, facing her at an angle.

“I think there’s been some kind of mistake.” Skinny says, somehow managing to pull off strained politeness. “This is a research laboratory, we’ve been here for well over a decade. We’re no threat to the Monster Kingdom.”

There are a few things she could say to that. Like how there aren’t supposed to _be_ any humans this close to the mountain without the King’s permission, or how their people had been caught trying to steal from Alphys’s lab, or how one of their getaway drivers had come _this_ close to dusting Snowdrake, or the _other_ supplies they had found after the truck crashed...

Undyne’s lips curl back, revealing the tips of her fangs. “Not a threat, huh? Funny, your people didn’t seem to agree with you.” She pauses, watching him inhale. “When they were yelling at that _kid_ to kill me.”

The human coughs. 

“The, um.” Their voice rasps. “Well, I mean - you must understand, we didn’t know why you were here, of course people reacted with violence, but-”

“Of course you were gonna fight, what the hell ELSE would you do??” Undyne stalks forward. The nearer humans roll out of her way as best they can; she pays barely enough attention to avoid crushing fingers. “But you’re making _kids_ fight for you. Kids with _magic_ who you’re locking up in CAGES??? WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING HERE?!?!”

Skinny’s voice fails them. They gape up at her, mouth opening and closing uselessly.

Undyne gives them a moment to come up with something. Snorts in disgust. Turns.

A voice stops her.

“This is important research!”

Beside her boot, another human has rolled over. They glare up at her through a thick chunk of hair, flopped forward to reveal a bald spot. 

“Research. On _kids._ ”

Bald Spot sniffs. “They’re fed, housed, get no expense spared when it comes to medical care - god, you’d think _we_ were the monsters.” Their face splits into a nasty smirk. “Or are you _projecting_?”

From the closet, Woshua has gone quiet. Instead, a low drone of growling rises, two voices in perfect harmony. The haze of fire seems to fill the room; Undyne can feel the heat on her neck; can see the image of the prisoners waver, as if through smoke. 

Her hand flexes.

“I've heard what you do to your own spawn - I'd bet if anyone talked to that kid you brainwashed without the cow around, they'd hear some _interesting_ -” 

_Thud._ Bald Spot’s voice cuts off in a strangled wheeze as Skinny lurches and falls on top of them.

“Harry, _shut up_!” Head craned around awkwardly, Skinny tries smiling at Undyne. It looks sick. “I’m sorry about him, he doesn’t speak for us.”

They’re having a hard time looking her in the face. Their eyes keep darting - past her?

Undyne glances back.

Huh. The fire isn’t just her imagination.

When Papyrus had introduced Undyne to probably-his-dad (“THIS IS GRILLBY! WE USED TO LIVE IN HIS HOUSE.”), the crackling from Grillby’s flames had reminded her of a campfire; a quiet background warmth, maybe not a match for the PASSION of her kitchen fires, but weirdly suited to the bar that he’d built.

Now it would be better described as a roar.

The edges of Grillby’s form blur, fire lashing out at the edges of his cuffs. His glasses are almost hidden in a halo of fire, tongues of crimson flame jumping high to lick the ceiling and leave scorch marks on the wall behind him. There’s a growing clear space around him, as prisoners pull away from the heat.

At the core of a wreath of flames, he stands very, very still.

“Grillby!” Undyne says sharply.

Silently, round glasses turn to face her.

Undyne nods at the prisoners trying to crawl away from his feet. “Cool it.”

For a long, tense moment, nothing happens. His shoulders lift and fall in imitation of a deep breath. Then, slowly, the flames recede. 

Undyne gives Skinny one last scorching glare and heads back to her post.

It takes another minute before the growling stops. Woshua’s spray starts up again, though without any commentary from him.

Fortunately for all of them, the tension is soon broken by the approaching clank of armour.

“Ms. Undyne!” 01 greets cheerfully. He looks like he’s tiring, but there’s still a bounce in his step. “Third floor is, like, done! Sans gave us this one, but we didn’t find anyone else.” 02 nods at her and hefts the prisoner slung under his arm.

“ _Good!!_ ” Undyne says emphatically. “I'm sick of this place. Lesser and Greater?”

“They’re checking the second floor again!”

There’s a scratching at the outside door. A moment later, Doggo pops his head in, a half-charred biscuit dangling from his mouth.

“Doge’s ready!!” he announces.

_Good._ A brief scan of the room shows the Dogi standing at attention outside the closet, tails high and ears perked. Woshua is peering cautiously around the doorway behind them, scowling. Grillby is back to his usual contained form; he meets her eyes and nods in acknowledgement. 

They can handle this without her.

“Start loading up the prisoners,” Undyne orders them all. “I’ll be back after I check on my nerd.”

Amid the clamour of barks and salutes, she heads back down the hall. Despite herself, Undyne feels the tension in her shoulders relax a little as soon as the prisoners are out of sight.

She’ll be glad when this day is over.

Alphys had started off trailing after her and Papyrus, but she had split off at the first room they had found with some kind of computer in it. Undyne isn’t worried, though: Alphys has the best protection any monster could give her. 

She finds Gerson outside the computer room, casually leaning on his hammer.

“Thought I taught you to protect your face, whippersnapper!” he calls as she approaches.

Undyne halts, surprised. “What-”

Oh, right. She almost forgot.

Undyne laughs. “Come on, it’s a BATTLE! No point if you don’t take a couple war wounds.” Never mind that she’d have any of her guards heads if she heard them saying that. “Besides, thought the helmet might scare the kids,” she adds, a bit more honestly.

Damn. Now that she’s been reminded of it, the stinging is seriously annoying.

“Well that’s one humdinger of a war wound. Almost lost your other eye there!” Gerson whistles in appreciation.

Undyne touches her cheek, carefully feeling out the edges of the gash. It starts just under her good eye, curving upwards around the side of her head. There’s a tear in her fin, too, where the scissor blades snapped shut. Feels like it’ll make a BADASS scar.

Pulling her hand back, Undyne sees the dust left on her gauntlet and winces. “Man, Alphys is going to freak…”

“Eh. She might be distracted.” Gerson glances through the open door behind him. “‘Been really wearing away at that keyboard.”

He shifts to the side as Undyne approaches the door.

About half the fluorescent lights are still working in this one, leaving the room unevenly lit. In the darker half, Alphys sits hunched in front of the screen of a computer. She left behind her coat for the mission, and it’s a little jarring seeing her in just the light blue turtleneck and dark pants; like she’s missing her armour in the middle of a fight.

Her breathing is wavery and hitched. Another second, and her hand flies to cover her mouth. “Oh _no,”_ she breathes.

“Alphys?”

Alphys jerks back from the computer, knocking a can of soda off of the desk. The can clanks onto the floor and rolls in a small circle; it hasn’t even been opened. 

“Undyne! I- This is-”

“You’re looking at their records, right?” Undyne interrupts, cutting off the beginning of a panicked justification. “What’d you find?”

“I-” Alphys swallows. “It’s - bad. It’s really bad.” She turns back to the computer and presses a few keys.

The face of another kid stares out at them, lip jutting in an upset pout. It’s not the running kid in the video earlier, but they look about the same age; they’re missing their hair like both of the others, and their eyes are puffy, like they’d been crying before the picture was taken. Below the picture, the caption reads “MIs6-Beta-1.”

The top of the screen reads “TERMINATED,” in big red letters. Just underneath it is a date. 

“There were _eight_ ,” the royal scientist whispers. “That’s - that’s how many were born, they tried more than that, but...”

“How many still alive?” 

Alphys inhales. “Four.”

The numbers on the screen glare at her in accusation. The date is only a month and a half past.

Undyne shuts her eyes. Her teeth clench.

Four. That’s four kids they maybe could have saved. Four kids with _magic_ , that if they’d just _known about earlier_ -

There’s a spear in her hand again. She fingers it, gauntlet sliding easily across the smooth blue magic. Can’t smash the computers. Alphys _needs_ the computers. Can’t smash the _humans_ even if they DESERVE IT!! 

“The _second_ we’re out,” Undyne hisses through gritted teeth, “I am BURNING this place TO THE GROUND!!”

There’s a sizzling sound.

Sparks jump between Alphys’s head spikes, dancing down the sleeves of her shirt. They stop precisely at her wrists, avoiding the keyboard in an impressive, unthinking display of control. “Not without me.”

_That’s_ Undyne’s girlfriend.

Pride helps distract her. Undyne clenches her fist around the spear again, feeling the weight; then deliberately dispels it.

“Toriel's taking the kids to start with, right?”

“Um - y-yeah, but she said she wants people to pitch in, since we didn't know how many, um. How many kids there were going to be.” 

“Well, YEAH, of course we will!” Undyne makes herself grin. “We’re going to take _way_ better care of those kids. They’ll be parented so hard, they won’t know what hit ‘em!”

Alphys’ sparks extinguish. “I- I’m not sure they’ll want to see me.”

Undyne blinks. “What, because of the scientist thing? I guess it might take them a bit to figure out that not all scientists are assholes, but I was thinking we’d just wave you at them to show them what a good one looks like.”

“B-but I’m not, really. A good scientist.”

“YOU? Not a great scientist???” Thoroughly distracted, Undyne gestures widely. “Come on, Alphys, you’re the BEST! You got everyone set up on the surface, you figured out how to connect to the human internet - heck, even the Queen had to admit you were the best pick for the job!!” Has Papyrus been slacking off on the positivity training?? Alphys hasn’t been this down on herself since everything came out about the -

Oh. “Is this about the amalgamates?”

Alphys bows her head. “The people here, the- the first experiments they did,” she says, “they were just t-t-trying to inject humans with magic. It’s the same thing _I_ was doing, e-except in reverse.” With a violent motion she grips her head, claws pressing into her spikes. “The exact same thing, I- I- I…”

“Yeah, but these assholes kept doing it, even after they knew it was hurting people. They went and made kids just so they could hurt them more, that’s just _sick_ .” Undyne seizes Alphys’s hands in hers, pulling the scientist up so she can look her in the eye. “ _You_ never wanted to hurt anyone. You made a mistake, and when it went crazy wrong, you tried to fix it!! Yeah, okay the Amalgamates are seriously creepy, but Endogeny’s happy. Gooey, but happy. And they’re not dust, which is what they would have been if you hadn’t done that stuff. You’re _nothing_ like the freaks here.”

Alphys looks up at her like Undyne personally pasted every one of the actual surface stars into the sky. She swallows, then nods.

“GREAT!” Undyne drops Alphys back into her chair. “Now are you going to KICK THEIR ASSES with your AWESOME SCIENTIST POWERS?!”

“Yes! I- um I mean I’m not really doing science right now I’m just looking through their computer files, but I guess that could count as-”

“Are you going to KICK THEIR COMPUTERS’ ASSES with your AWESOME COMPUTER POWERS??!!”

“YES UNDYNE!!”

As if to emphasize her new resolve, Alphys’s phone rings. She snatches it up. “YES!?”

There’s a pause.

“Oh, Sans, I was just, uh - y-yeah, Undyne is here. Do you need to talk to her?”

**Author's Note:**

> Next chapter: Undyne.


End file.
